A California man was sentenced to seven years and three months in prison for selling more than $5.4 million in illegal copies of software made by Microsoft Corp., Adobe Systems Inc. and other companies. Nathan Peterson, 27, of Antelope Acres also was ordered to pay restitution of $5.4 million and to forfeit homes, cars, a boat and other assets he bought with profit from a website through which he sold the pirated software.

Seagram's Universal Music Group has signed an agreement with Sunnyvale, Calif.-based InterTrust Technologies to begin testing a piracy-fighting digital distribution security system, sources said. InterTrust's DigiBox software acts like a "virtual" envelope that can wrap around any digital content (from compact discs to MP3 files) and deliver it securely via the Internet or through other methods, including retail store kiosks or cable set-top boxes, sources said.

China has arrested some 2,600 people in an 8-month-old crackdown on product piracy, the government said Tuesday, criticizing U.S. complaints that it was failing to stop rampant copying of foreign movies, music and other goods. Authorities have destroyed 63 million compact discs and other counterfeit goods estimated to be worth 860 million yuan ($105 million), said Vice Minister of Commerce Zhang Zhigang, speaking at a nationally televised news conference.

Russell William Sprague, the Illinois man accused of illegally copying scores of awards-consideration movie screening tapes, is set to be indicted and arraigned Feb. 17 in federal court in Los Angeles. Sprague, who put up his house in Homewood, Ill., as collateral to meet the $25,000 bond for his release, is charged with copyright infringement and illegal interception of a satellite signal. According to a complaint filed Jan.

About a week before Christmas, I took a stroll around the Los Angeles Toy District and bought a pirated DVD. As I wrote on Dec. 21, curious about the quality of the merchandise for sale on the street, I shelled out five bucks for a copy of the movie "District 9," which was still days away from being available in your local retail store. As I've been informed, quite properly, by readers in and around the movie industry, that casual act made me part of a global problem that is killing jobs and eliminating opportunities for creative people everywhere.

Movie studios are taking their battle against piracy to state capitals across the country, urging local lawmakers to give Hollywood yet another weapon against those who pick the electronic locks on digital programs. The studios' goal is to expand state laws against the theft of cable and phone services to cover a new generation of digital devices and Internet-based offerings, said Vans Stevenson, senior vice president of state legislative affairs for the Motion Picture Assn. of America.

MOSCOW - Fourteen Greenpeace activists were charged with piracy Wednesday in connection with their protest at a Russian oil platform in the Arctic, an official of the environmental group said. The charges, issued by prosecutors in Murmansk, carry a sentence of up to 15 years in prison and reflect the seriousness with which Russia regards any threat to its energy industry, the foundation of its economy. They also may hint at the ascendancy of hard-liners in President Vladimir Putin's Kremlin, one analyst said.

Shipping officials from around the world called Monday for a military blockade along Somalia's coast to intercept pirate vessels heading out to sea. But NATO, which has four warships off the coast of Somalia, rejected the idea. Peter Swift of the International Assn. of Independent Tanker Owners said stronger naval action and aerial support were necessary to battle rampant piracy in the Gulf of Aden near Somalia. About 20 tankers sail through the sea lane daily.

In what was described as the largest single crackdown against video stores dealing in pirated videocassettes, police and investigators with the Motion Picture Assn. of America seized 10,000 illicit tapes and arrested six South Gate store owners, authorities said Friday.

January 18, 2012 | By Jim Puzzanghera and Richard Verrier, Los Angeles Times

Until this week, entertainment industry executives thought they had the votes for new federal legislation cracking down on foreign websites that traffic in pirated movies and music and cost them billions. They lined up support from the powerful pharmaceutical industry and labor unions, and organized an impressive bipartisan coalition in Congress. Then Silicon Valley struck back and appears to have outflanked Hollywood. The result was on full display Tuesday night as Wikipedia, Craigslist and other popular sites shut down for a threatened 12- to 24-hour strike, said to be the Internet's first such stoppage.